Corvus' enhancement pack, now updated

[LKN-351]

 

 

I've used Corvus' enhancement pack since he first dropped it right after Ultra mode was released. I love it, it makes all the enhancements so you can tell what they are even with just a quick glance. I applaud him for the work he put into creating it originally.

 

That being said, there where a couple of issues he never figured out and now there are quite a few new IO enhancements that didn't work with his most recent version from before sunset. I'd been trying to fix some of those issues he couldn't figure out for as long as I can remember and in the process of finding the cause of and also how to fix them I stumbled across the tools and files to fix the set and also bring it up to date. So... I did.

 

I uploaded four different versions. Maybe some people find what I fixed from one version to the next version to be too far from the original so I uploaded variations.

 

First version, it was posted under the name Basilisk. I think that was Corvus' original forum handle but it could possibly be where Corvus got the idea to do his. Hard to say, not that important.

This pack only changes the background POG to Basilisks/Corvus' shiny domed version. It still uses the games ICON overlays, which means that the standard IO, TO, SO, and DO use the original design from the game.

V1; Corvus pack

 

Spoiler

 

Second version, I didn't change anything in this version aside from fixing the glaring issue that Corvus had when he originally uploaded it. I did add the newer IO sets that released since he last updated the pack so it is completely up to date as of when I posted this.

It's the same concept as the first version but the pack uses much more files that Corvus modified. The TOs, SOs, and DOs all use the same ICONs as the standard IOs which makes them much easier to identify by sight, IMO.

V2; Corvus pack updated

 

Spoiler

 

Third version, I fixed the ICON color inconsistencies from enhancement to enhancement and as many image alignment issues that I was capable of that crept up due to the way the game 'builds' enhancements. The whites and the blacks always seemed a bit dingy so I fixed that.

V3; Corvus pack, updated & fixed

 

Spoiler

 

Fourth version, This was the pack that I fixed anything and everything that I didn't like about the enhancements since I first started playing CoH back in the day. As I dug through the retired enhancements I realized the reasons some of them look as they do was due to enhancements that are not even used in the game any more. I'd be willing to bet that some people weren't even aware of the old retired enhancements, so why not remove the design elements of the current ones that are only there due to the retired ones?

For example; there used to be a Heal, a Buff Heal, and a Debuff Heal. The up arrow on Heal is unnecessary so I removed it.

V4; Corvus pack, updated, fixed & standardized

 

Spoiler

 

NOTES: There exists somewhere out there on the internet a Corvus/Basilisk pack that uses a different color for Damage Resist. I know I used to have it, but I can't find it. I know the color in the packs is different from what the base game uses but there was originally three different resistance enhancements and Basilisk/Corvus decided to make one of both... one of which got lost in the ether somewhere. I'm still looking for it.

I like how To-hit Buff looks, but I can't get the Debuff version to look the same. I tried and wasn't happy with the results. I also tried to make a variant of both of them for the fourth iteration but I didn't like the way they turned out either. If I imagine a solution to this I'll post it up when I'm done with it.

The special enhancements (D-sync, Hami, Hydra, and Titan origin) have a different image file setup so they couldn't be modified without creating new image files. That's not really in my wheelhouse lol

 

KNOWN ISSUES

• Stagger. The OG Devs made that file different than the rest. I tried to align it as best I could but it was either perfect for the enhancement or perfect for the recipe, both was not an option. I chose the enhancement. I think this is the same case in the standard game as well.
• I found that IO sets could be aligned for your management screen and the SG storage racks but they' be misaligned at the Auction House window. I didn't test this on the first or second iterations, but it's definitely the case with the third and fourth iterations.
• Attuned enhancements are slightly misaligned, if I fix that issue they'd be misaligned as the IO set. Sorry lol I did what I could. I didn't test this on the first or second iterations, but it's definitely the case with the third and fourth iterations.
• Talisman enhancements share icons with the SO/DO enhancements, when I made icons that worked for them they also jacked up a ton of SO/DO enhancements. Unfortunately all the Talismans use the IO Damage POG. This only effects the second, third, and fourth iterations.
• IMPORTANT When you download these from Google drive it renames four files, two of which will cause the game to not load. I put a .txt file into the offending versions with instructions on how to fix it.

 

None of this is completely my creation, I took Basilisk/Corvus images and combined them with the images from the game. If you have comments or suggestions or find some issues don't hesitate to let me know.

If I decide to change anything in the future I'll definitely post in this thread and update the links.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by LKN-351
changed links

[LKN-351]

A whole bunch of views and a single like. Hmmm, well.

[AboveTheChemist]

1 hour ago, LKN-351 said:

A whole bunch of views and a single like. Hmmm, well.

There is little glory in mod-making. Cherish the thanks that you get and hope they balance out the occasional (and often inexplicable) angry rant that comes your way.

 

I am thoroughly impressed with what you've put together. I'll admit that after our initial conversations, I had my doubts that what you wanted to do was even possible. This mod looks fantastic, and you should be quite proud of it!

[lemming]

I'll have to say, these look very nice.  I may even install them.  (I'm just plain lazy...)

[LKN-351]

5 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

There is little glory in mod-making. Cherish the thanks that you get and hope they balance out the occasional (and often inexplicable) angry rant that comes your way.

 

I am thoroughly impressed with what you've put together. I'll admit that after our initial conversations, I had my doubts that what you wanted to do was even possible. This mod looks fantastic, and you should be quite proud of it!

 

Once you gave me the tools I needed I accidentally figured out what the original issue was and then I happened upon the other two older versions of his packs and it was on like donkey kong. Although some of the alignment issues where inherent to the game, I had to shift the IO rings a bit cause they where off compared to all the other rings.

 

I think I fixed anything that anyone could possibly rant about but wonders never cease yeah? lol

 

3 hours ago, lemming said:

I'll have to say, these look very nice.  I may even install them.  (I'm just plain lazy...)

 

Naw man, it's super easy to install. Hardest part would be figuring out which version you might want. I uploaded them so you just gotta paste it into the HC folder once its downloaded. There's even a preview folder and a few other alts in each pack.

[raveneyes]

Beautiful icon, however I got a few errors on install:

File "texture_library/GUI/Icons/Enhancements/E_Icon_Assassin_s_Mark_ATO.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "E_Icon_Assassin's_Mark_ATO"!
File "texture_library/GUI/Icons/Enhancements/E_Icon_Spider_s_Bite_ATO.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "E_Icon_Spider's_Bite_ATO"!

These both cause the game to not load, After deleting those 2 .textures the game load and the textures look great!

[lemming]

Testing on one of my systems with fourth iteration and got this error

 

File "texture_library/GUI/Icons/Enhancements/E_Icon_Assassin_s_Mark_ATO.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "E_Icon_Assassin's_Mark_ATO"!

E_Icon_Spider_s_Bite_ATO has the same issue.

 

Which could be a function of my running via Linux, but it does look like if one downloads from your share as a zip, it helpfully puts the files into the zip changing any single quotes to an underbar.

 

So easily fixed by changing the four files involved after placing, but might trip up other people.

 

Once done, everything looks very good.

[lemming]

9 minutes ago, raveneyes said:

Beautiful icon, however I got a few errors on install:

File "texture_library/GUI/Icons/Enhancements/E_Icon_Assassin_s_Mark_ATO.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "E_Icon_Assassin's_Mark_ATO"!
File "texture_library/GUI/Icons/Enhancements/E_Icon_Spider_s_Bite_ATO.texture" is misnamed, containing texture named "E_Icon_Spider's_Bite_ATO"!

These both cause the game to not load, After deleting those 2 .textures the game load and the textures look great!

Ha!  Same issue.   I renamed the files and it worked fine.   Did you download the zip or copy? 

[raveneyes]

11 minutes ago, lemming said:

Ha!  Same issue.   I renamed the files and it worked fine.   Did you download the zip or copy? 

Downloaded the zip

Well that was easy, replaced the _s with 's in the texture file names and it work great! Thanks!

Edited February 9, 2022 by raveneyes

[LKN-351]

Hmm, I wonder why any coder would use an apostrophe in a file name in the first place.

 

I'll take a look and see what the file names look like on my machine.

[LKN-351]

The files look fine on my machine and on my Google drive.

 

When you say four files I'd guess you mean the two .texture files and the two .png files? The game doesn't care about the .png files, I put those in there so people could visualize which enhancement was in the folder, I thought it'd make it easier if you use some of the alternate files.

 

I'm not sure how to copy files from Google drive so I can't test that vs downloading the files. I'll wait for a response before I edit the OP to mention this odd bug.

Edited February 9, 2022 by LKN-351

[AboveTheChemist]

When I preview iteration four via Google Drive, I see the filenames with the apostrophe included. When I go to download, Google Drive zips the file and when I open that zip file, I see the apostrophe replaced with an underscore. Here's an image (crudely combined) showing both (locally zipped file on top, Google Drive preview on bottom).

 

 

I concur with Lemming's observation above that Google Drive seems to be replacing the apostrophe with an underscore.

[LKN-351]

Yeah and I'm not aware of anything I can do about it aside from adding it to the main post and putting a txt file into the download itself explaining how to fix it.

 

Updating original post.

 

[LKN-351]

To be honest I wasn't sure if very many would like the fourth iteration, which is why I made both the third and the fourth available. Sounds like everyone's going for that one. Howsaboot that.

 

Should I rename the folders on google drive to be more consistent with the wording I used here in the OP??

Edited February 10, 2022 by LKN-351
added the question

[AboveTheChemist]

One option might be to separate the preview .png files from the texture files. Display the preview files as is done now on Google Drive, but zip the texture files up on your computer and upload the zip file to Google Drive. Since it seems like it's Google Drive's zipping process that is causing the issue, zipping it yourself might alleviate that problem. So you'd have two links for each iteration, one for the preview and one for the actual mod. I don't recall having any issues with the mods I have provided via zip file (although I don't know offhand if any filenames had apostrophes).

 

As for the folder names, it was a tad confusing but not to the point where it was an issue and I was able to figure it out quickly. It might not hurt to change them though to make it as simple as possible.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, LKN-351 said:

Hmm, I wonder why any coder would use an apostrophe in a file name in the first place.

My guess, not a coder behind the decision.  Of course, most code should be ready for bad filenames.

[LKN-351]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

One option might be to separate the preview .png files from the texture files. Display the preview files as is done now on Google Drive, but zip the texture files up on your computer and upload the zip file to Google Drive. Since it seems like it's Google Drive's zipping process that is causing the issue, zipping it yourself might alleviate that problem. So you'd have two links for each iteration, one for the preview and one for the actual mod. I don't recall having any issues with the mods I have provided via zip file (although I don't know offhand if any filenames had apostrophes).

 

As for the folder names, it was a tad confusing but not to the point where it was an issue and I was able to figure it out quickly. It might not hurt to change them though to make it as simple as possible.

 

I can't imagine a reason to separate the .png files but I will definitely zip them up and then upload them. I'm pretty sure it was you that linked me to the unmodified enhancement files so they definitely had the exact same files as what's causing the issues right now. That sounds like a perfect solution, thanks.

[LKN-351]

Uploaded zip files instead of just folders, should fix the previous issues with the files being renamed.

[Thirty-Seven]

Since the time this pack was released, it does look like they changed what file the Damage Resist POG points to. It should be: "E_POG_BUFF_DAMAGE_RESIST.texture". I was able to make a new POG that worked, but it was the wrong file size and crashed the game when I tried to move a DO with that texture.

[LKN-351]

That sucks that yours didn't work. Are you wanting to troubleshoot or what?